Olympic qualification 101: Winning places in Antalya

The Final Qualification Tournament, held as part of the third stage of the 2016 Hyundai Archery World Cup, is the last chance to win places to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in competition.

Pre-Antalya

Antalya is the sixth and final competition that awards places to Rio 2016. The previous five were:

• 1x Main Qualifying Tournament
• 5x Continental Qualifying Tournaments

The main qualifier was held in Copenhagen in the summer of 2015, as part of the World Archery Championships, and awarded a total of 64 places, including eight teams in each of the men’s and women’s divisions.

From November 2015 to May 2016, the five continental qualifying tournaments handed out 28 individual places to 14 men and 14 women.

Host country Brazil also received its full six-archer quota.

Quota count: 98

In Antalya

The ranking round for the Hyundai Archery World Cup stage also seeded athletes for the Final Qualifying Tournament, an event held within the competition week.

Results from the event have been split apart, and can be found online:

• Hyundai Archery World Cup stage 3
• Final Rio 2016 Olympic Qualifying Tournament

Team Qualification

Nations that did not qualify a full team at the initial opportunity in Copenhagen in 2015 – and either qualified no athletes or one athlete through the process up until Antalya – were eligible to enter a team into the Final Qualifying Tournament.

Seeded from the World Cup ranking round, eligible teams compete in a normal bracket to decide who wins the places. There are three men’s and three women’s places available in Antalya – and the teams that finish in first, second and third in the bracket each take a place for their nation.

There was a cut to 16 teams in each division, and the head-to-heads take place on the afternoon of Thursday 16 June.

The teams that qualified for the eliminations (in order of seeds, 1-16):

• Men: India , Mexico , Germany , Russia , Finland , Japan , Kazakhstan , Malaysia , Ukraine , France , Great Britain , Indonesia , Belarus , Slovenia , Canada , Turkey 
• Women: Germany , Italy , Chinese Taipei , USA , Ukraine , Poland , Turkey , Spain , Great Britain , Kazakhstan , France , Denmark , Mongolia , Indonesia , IR Iran , Estonia 

Quota count: 116

Individual Qualification

There are a minimum of six places available in the individual quota tournament in Antalya, too. However, this number might increase. 

If nations that had a single place qualify a team place at the Final Qualification Tournament, the individual place they had is returned to the pool and made available in this section of the qualifying process. This means there will be between three and six places available in each gender – but we won’t know for sure until the team matches are completed.

(We also won’t know for sure how many athletes compete for them, until the team qualifiers are taking out of the rankings and the brackets decided.)

Any places won in the individual competition are assigned to the respective National Olympic Committee – who can then decide which athlete takes up the quota.

The eliminations for the individual part of the Final Qualification Tournament take place on Friday 17 June.

Quota count: 122

After Antalya

Athletes must achieve a minimum qualification score – 600 for women, 630 for men – before competing in Rio, and National Olympic Committees have until 4 July to confirm acceptance of any quota place. Any unused quota places are reassigned using the results of the Final Quota Tournament.

The Olympic Tripartite Commission assigns the final six places to nations eligible for invitations, usually developing or small countries.

Quota count: 128

See you in Rio!